Oh, dear. It seems our friend the colossal squid — you know, the one that’s even bigger than the giant squid, the one with eyes the size of dinner plates, the one with tentacles covered in swiveling hooks instead of suckers — is losing a bit of its street cred. Says the BBC today:
The world’s largest invertebrate is not a fast and voracious predator as previously thought, say scientists.
The colossal squid, a creature once linked to maritime myth and feared as a sea monster, is really a slow drifting animal that ambushes unwitting prey.
Well, that’s embarrassing.
No one knows much about colossal squid, because they’re rarely seen, but their massive size and hook-covered tentacles have drawn comparisons to the aggressively predatory Kraken of lore. The study the BBC is reporting on, though, says that living in frigid waters means the colossal squid has a slow metabolism — which means that it could actually survive on about two 11-pound fish per year.
Slow metabolism also means low energy, so rather than chasing down and wrangling in their prey, the authors say, the squid probably hide out and wait for something appetizing to swim by. This leads the BBC to conclude, in their headline, that the colossal squid is actually “not fearsome” after all. Poor colossal squid.
In the defense of the largest boneless animal in the world, though, I’d like to say two things.
First thing: I believe in science. I believe in math, too, and in statistical modeling, for the most part. That being said, the researchers arrived at their conclusion without ever seeing, touching, or disemboweling an actual colossal squid. Instead, they’re using what they know about similar species’ metabolism and energy intake to make their best mathematical estimates of what the colossal squid’s metabolism and energy intake must be. Then they’re inferring things about its behavior from there.
It’s similar to what paleontologists do when they want to know about dinosaur physiology: they use what they know about living species to create theoretical models for the not-so-living ones. It’s scientific, and it’s the best they can do, but lord knows it’s never quite conclusive. Similarly, the colossal squid study isn’t an empirical observation of non-fearsomeness; it’s a mathematical argument of non-fearsomeness.
Second thing: Assuming the researchers are right about the colossal squid’s feeding habits, I don’t think it tarnishes their reputation as the deep sea’s biggest bad-ass. Here’s why: sitting and waiting for prey to come to you doesn’t make you lazy — it makes you cool.
Ask a teenager. Or James Dean. Chasing after things just means you’re trying too hard, you know? But sitting back, calm and unperturbed, assured enough of your own irresistibility that you know the things you want will come around? That’s fierce.
Hand-wringing about the internet is by now a time-honored tradition. It’s making our children lazy! It’s replacing legitimate human connection! It’s too distracting! There are too many naked people on it!
Perhaps the most famous work to date in the “oh no, the internet!” canon is Nicholas Carr’s 2008 feature for The Atlantic Monthly, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” In it, Carr suggests that the internet rewires our brains, diminishes our capacity for concentration, and might ultimately make us into poorer thinkers on the whole. (Carr’s story was followed by all sorts of refutations, including Carl Zimmer’s “How Google Is Making Us Smarter.”)
I was thinking about something on a related subject and wondering if Carr had addressed it, so I set out to find his story. As I started to type the title into Google — a little cannibalistic, I guess — here’s what happened:
Google search suggestions provide all sorts of fascinating anthropological insights, but I think this is my favorite one yet. What Carr said in 5,000 words, Google says in six. (And by the time I was done laughing, screen-capping and sending to a friend, I’d lost the motivation to actually read the article, so maybe Carr had a point after all.)
On Monday, the AP reported the discovery of a shrimp-like crustacean living in the frigid waters beneath a 600-foot-thick Antarctic ice sheet. The NASA team that accidentally caught it on video only wanted to look at the underside of the ice sheet — they hadn’t expected to find any life beneath it, where light doesn’t penetrate. The discovery opens up the possibility that life could survive in other dark, frozen places, like under the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa.
Yeah, yeah. That’s great and everything. But can we eat it?
Apparently that’s the real question on everyone’s mind, since the AP headline reads “NASA finds shrimp dinner on ice beneath Antarctica,” and one of the scientists involved in the discovery is quoted, early in the story, as follows:
“We were operating on the presumption that nothing’s there,” said NASA ice scientist Robert Bindschadler, who will be presenting the initial findings and a video at an American Geophysical Union meeting Wednesday. “It was a shrimp you’d enjoy having on your plate.”
So apparently, the most interesting thing about this creature living where they thought no creature could live is that it’s kind of big, and therefore maybe okay with garlic.
Looks... delicious? (Image: NASA)
This isn’t an isolated phenomenon. When scientists in New Zealand caught a colossal squid — a squid even larger than the giant squid, with the biggest eyeballs in the world and tentacles covered in sharp, rotating hooks — the Daily Mail dubbed it “Calamari for 500.”
Really? Really, its deep-frying potential is the most important thing about it?
I’m not trying to moralize here — a reporter’s job is to help readers connect with a story, and we can all relate to wanting to eat things. I, too, enjoy eating things, and occasionally I even eat shrimp or squid. And I’m sure that Bindschadler’s comment was made offhand, and that he’s truly in the Antarctic for the science, not the snacks.
But most of us, if we’re conscientious human beings, try not to be superficial. We try not to value other people only for their looks, or their wealth, or how tasty they are when sautéed. So maybe, as conscientious explorers of the mysteries of the deep, we should try giving our invertebrate friends the same respect.
Where to start? In the spirit of change, I propose we rename the sea cucumber to something that better reflects its many talents other than looking like food. I am open to suggestions.
